Has anyone else noticed this?

[ked91]

I’m not intending on bashing anyone or any group. Something i’ve noticed since becoming more active in dog training spheres is the rudeness towards aversive tool users in ff and pos-r only groups. Is this a trend with all training communities? It’s frustrating when it prevents me from being able to interact with certain communities due to how rejected e-collars are (low stim for recall, pos-r for everything else in my case). My dog’s e-collar keeps him safe and that is why I use it.

I understand that e-collars are a touchy subject but when you aren’t even willing to learn about how it works/why i use it it can become draining.

(If this post breaks any rules please take it down. I read through them and I don’t think it does. I am in no way trying to start anything with anyone, I’m just wondering if anyone else has noticed this)

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@ked91 The training community is pretty fractured and online spaces amplify that. The internet is full of dicks who argue just to argue. FF dicks will act like using a prong collar is tantamount to punching your dog and balanced dicks will act like FF trainers would rather euthanize a dog than say the word "no".

I heavily curate my feed to maintain sanity.

 

[ked91]

@imagebeastmarkbeast that is wise and i do my best to do the same.

 

[crossnote]

@ked91 I train at a dog training club that does not use aversive methods. They also do not allow you to have the dog on a prong or e-collar in the ring. It’s their facility, I’m paying them for their advice and they have success in the sports they compete in so who am I to tell them how to train? I knew their methods when I gave them my money and decided to give them a try.

That being said, they know I use an e-collar for recall and used it to teach and refine obedience. Nobody has ever been rude to me or try to tell me it’s wrong. They haven’t asked for advice either but I’m not there to be an instructor. A lady in our flyball class keeps her cattle dog on a prong collar between runs. The only thing the instructor said to her about it was to ask her to take it off and switch to a flat collar or martingale before bringing him into the ring to work. He’s been doing great on the groundwork exercises, which are all off leash anyway.

Rudeness gets nowhere.

 

[abaseg]

@crossnote Seems like a really healthy environment!

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@crossnote I got bashed by +R only ppl before for using martingales. But it's buckleless and one piece, the only collar I trust enough for my dog to not break or slip her head out of. Both have happened before when she was going banana lol

 

[doks]

@ked91

Is this a trend with all training communities

Um, it's a trend in humans who make cliques. Trust me, as someone who genuinely hangs out in the middle, the FF and 'balanced' groups both sling mud equally. There isn't a day that goes by that both groups don't come across my various social feeds starting something. I've heavily moderated my feed so I don't see most of it these days, but humans are echo-chamber loving creatures.

 

[abaseg]

@doks Totally agree it goes both ways. Some FF people call aversives abuse and some balanced trainers call FF cookie pushing and bribing. Both come from a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of each other. I will say there’s probably a bit more push back from FF because their methods do not include balanced ones where as good balance does include R+.

While I’m not in a place where I want to use tools right now, I have found a lot of value in educating myself about them and surrounding myself with people who use them right. Frankly the debate is tiresome because everyone is using bad examples of the other side to prove their point. People need to just call out bad trainers for bad training and not the label which they might call themselves.

 

[ked91]

@doks yeah that definitely makes sense. it can be disappointing but i get it. i struggle to understand how people think sometimes due to my autism lol so thank you for explaining

 

[younglite]

@ked91 I use R+ training with my dog but I am here specifically BECAUSE I don’t know how to use an e-collar properly. I am lucky that my dogs responds so well to R+ training, though we still have some reactivity to work on with other dogs. However, I think different training methods work for different dogs. I don’t know if mine will ever have an e-collar personally, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a helpful device for others. I agree - being rude is no way to exchange information, and what works for one dog may not work for another. We’re all here to share tips and learn from each to do best for our dogs and our own sanity.

 

[lawrenceryan]

@younglite This comment means so much to me. I’ve always had dogs that learn with R+ perfectly. Then I met my reactive dog and learned that other methods of training are 100% needed in some cases. She was a nutcase full of anxiety and fear-induced aggression. We have worked with her on an ecollar for over a year now and she appears non-reactive in most cases. She’s learned to trust me and I credit the ecollar (along with our AMAZING trainer and Trazodone).

 

[younglite]

@lawrenceryan 100%! I had to learn R+ with my reactive dog because any negative stimulus seemed to make him worse. Punishment in our house is putting him in the bedroom for a 3 minute “timeout” like a toddler. It is absurd, lol.

I think with reactive dogs, we learn to have thicker skin naturally. You’re doing right by your dog with what works for her. Even beyond breeds, we all know every dog is different. And it should be pretty apparent, if we’re on these subs, that we are all TRYING OUR BEST and willing to learn other options.

Frankly, my reaction to the hateful people online is no different than the people who give “advice” like “have you tried introducing him to other dogs?”
Wow dog whisperer, that must be it. You fixed everything. /s

 

[lawrenceryan]

@younglite Omg someone told me one time if I let my reactive dog meet people who had treats it would solve her reactivity. No. She doesn’t even take treats from me when she’s reacting to a stranger.

And we hear “Oh, it’s ok!!! Dogs like me!” way too much because she’s learned to be calm when people walk by. I have a do not pet harness on her and put myself between her and strangers. Still people will try to approach.

“Dogs like me!” Yes, my reactive dog will like you because you are very special. Must be the essential oil and crystals.

 

[younglite]

@lawrenceryan YES! People with Disney dogs will never understand. My dog is reactive to other dogs and does not like being directly approached by strangers. He is not person-aggressive, but he will bark and try to hide beyond me. I’ve had people do the same and try to force themselves on him, like magically he’ll calm down if you get in his face. Learning to advocate for my dog was the hardest lesson I had to learn as an owner. I’m better at standing up for him than I was when we first brought him home. I don’t feel like a failure anymore. I don’t like everyone I meet either, and I don’t expect my dog to. I expect my dog to be able to walk past people without a reaction and people to respect his boundaries. It’s funny how reframing my own mind seemed to help him. He trusts that I won’t put him in shitty situations and so he doesn’t flip the fuck out over small stuff. Which, great. But if that didn’t work for him, then how can you say it’s abusive to throw a prong collar on a dog to be able to better control outbursts and the like?

Obviously, I don’t know, but sometimes intense R+ people come off to me like they have a wild Cujo on the other end of the leash and just let them do whatever the hell they want. There’s a difference between giving a dog structure and abuse. Come on.

 

[kjdlr]

@ked91 I don't mind that different cliques have different opinions. The thing that gets me though is the seemingly arbitrary hard lines that are drawn to delineate them. For example, I (and a lot of experts) would argue for a majority of dogs, head haltis are a lot more aversive and potentially damaging than a prong collar in inexperienced hands. Yet there are subreddits that will suggest them as a fix for everything - loose leash training, reactivity, you name it, a head halti fixes it and how dare you mention the stress it causes on the cervical spine. At the same time they're saying prong collars are aversive and only work by causing large amounts of pain. Hell, I even had a comment removed completely because I linked a toy ball sold on chewy - they removed it because heaven forbid the website also sells prong collars.

 

[ked91]

@kjdlr oh yeah i worked with a service dog organization that pushed head halters and completely forbade prongs. just because it’s a soft material doesn’t mean it’s not potentially damaging. prongs are not sharp and when used properly they can be a wonderful tool for a dog that’s struggling to catch on to llw. i would take responsive dog on a prong over a heavy puller on a flat any day. people seem to forget that heavy pullers will eventually damage their throats, even if being on a collar looks nicer.

 

[jaenalyn]

@ked91 Well, on the pozi side you're dealing with a group that defines itself by what it doesn't do, so you're going to run into judgmental people if you obviously don't fit their mold. I imagine you'd have a similar experience if you went into a vegan cooking group and started asking questions about how much butter to fry your tofu in.

 

[lawrenceryan]

@jaenalyn This comment sums up a lot of human psychology. If you focus on negatives (aversion to an ecollar, for example) then your outlook becomes more judgmental. If you focus on the positives (like accepting the use of prong collars), then you can help reframe your mindset to “I like this thing because ___. They must like that thing for a reason, too.”

 

[joylakala]

@ked91 I hear you. It’s extremely frustrating, and also frustrating that there are such limited sub reddits that you can even mention any of the aversive training tools. For my dog, we spent the first 3 years of her life strictly working on positive reinforcement training. It worked great for simple commands and basic training, but she has reactivity issues and no matter how much training we did it never addressed that issue and we weren’t able to successfully maintain it.

After doing a TON of research and talking to a few different educated and experienced trainers, I felt comfortable with trying the ecollar. We worked with an experienced and well-known training facility in the area and by the first lesson I saw MAJOR improvements in my dog’s confidence and reactivity issues. We’re 3 months in to using the ecollar and it’s been such a game changer. Both of us a more confident now, and her reactivity has significantly decreased.

So it definitely frustrates me when people aren’t even willing to hear me out, and I essentially can’t even relate to others who strictly use positive reinforcement (even though I still use it as a primary training tool in all other aspects).